(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 10)
Loading ...HTC may get cozy with Sony Ericsson
By Paolo Del Nibletto
One of the reasons I came to Taiwan was I was interested in meeting HTC (High Tech Computer Corp.) CEO Peter Chou.
HTC makes a finger-touch smart phone that is similar to the Apple iPhone. The HTC is available in Canada while the iPhone isn’t, although Rogers Communications has announced it will finally bring the iPhone to Canada later on this year. In the mean time, many of those users that want a finger touch smart phone and don’t want to wait for Apple and Rogers to get their collective acts together have purchased an HTC unit.
One Italian reporter has told me that the same thing is happening in her country. I am glad to know that Canada isn’t the only country Apple ignores.
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(4 votes, average: 6.5 out of 10) Loading ...Taiwan’s top computer vendors are transitioning
By Paolo Del Nibletto
I’ve just learned that Acer’s Chairman C.T. Wang cancelled his interview for Friday on this tour of Taiwan. It’s really disappointing but Jonney Shih, chairman and CEO of Asus, was still on the docket.
During my time with him I learned that Taiwan’s top computing vendors are transitioning from being manufacturers for top North American brands such as Apple to building up its own brands. This small country of just 23 million people has always been known for making other vendors’ products. Foxcom, for instance, produces the iPhone for Apple.
I also learned there is a secret boat, that isn’t so secret anymore, that has left Taipei harbour carrying boxes stamped with the Apple logo. What’s in the boxes? Well, I thought at first it was iPhones for Canada. But I later found out the boat is heading for somewhere on the West coast of the U.S. So, your guess is as good as mine.
It not that Taiwan’s IT industry is abandoning original design manufacturing (ODM); it just is no longer going to be its core business.
Asustek, for example, is shifting its ODM to a separate independent business unit called Pegatron. Going forward, Asus will be on its own. The manufacturing of computing products has already shifted for the most part to China because of the high labour costs in Taiwan. In the past, manufacturing was a key strength, but over the years their margins have gotten slimmer, and slimmer and slimmer.
Taiwanese products were regarded as cheaply priced goods, said Michael Kuo CEO of Avermedia, who I met later on in the afternoon here. Kuo said that today’s Taiwanese manufacturers such as his company would rather be affordable and not just cheap.
Kuo added that Taiwan wants to educate its people. The company is providing something called a document camera as a better visual teaching aid as part of its product set. They have also adopted six sigma strategies similar to Asus.
Acer, D-Link and Asus are focusing on themselves and specifically on brand, while leaving the manufacturing to the Chinese and Vietnamese. Besides focusing on their own brands, these companies are also keeping important departments such as R&D, engineering and design in Taiwan.
According to Kuo, Taiwan will keep its knowledge to continue creating many more high quality products. This is a fundamental difference between China and Taiwan.
This change in philosophy hit a high note last year with the introduction of the EEE PC notebook by Asustek. This little machine is a major seller at Best Buy in the U.S. It also created quite a stir in Europe and other nations in the Pacific Rim. Before this device, the Taiwanese computing vendor’s strategy was just that – a strategy. It had not yet produced any real results.
This small device has put a spotlight on Taiwanese vendors again. It showed that these companies can be innovative and provide real value. The channel has taken notice with Acer, but look for more resellers to partner with Asustek because of the low-cost EEE PC.
Asus chairman Jonney Shih said there will be many models of the EEE PC so that it can be more than just a consumer notebook. There will be more robust EEE PCs for business and the enterprise and the company is building on its EEE brand with EEE box gaming console, EEE stick video game remote, EEE TVs, and maybe even the EEE toaster that plays music.
One quick hit before I go. Vancouver-based Epic Data International Inc. has appointed Robert Nygren as president and CEO. The former president and CEO of financial software developer Fincentric Corp., Nygren replaces interim CEO James Dodds, who was appointed in October 2006.
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(3 votes, average: 6.33 out of 10) Loading ...How partners can get more from stagnant IT budgets
By Paolo Del Nibletto
As an IT reseller, have you ever wondered how you could increase your business from an existing customer who has just told you their IT budget is stagnant for another year?
Well, it’s time to look beyond the IT department. Many other departments have budgets that include IT products and services, and non-IT departments and or individuals inside an organization acquiring IT products is becoming a growing trend. For example, a nurse often has authorization from administration to go ahead and purchase a push to talk IP phone.
The top decision maker will often go outside a set IT budget to buy a computing solution to either solve a specific business problem or gain a competitive advantage. The challenge then becomes how will this new equipment gets deployed and more important work with all other IT systems.
A customer doesn’t want expensive new equipment failing to talk with older equipment. This creates an opportunity for the solution provider to prevent an organization from having disparate IT solutions.
However, there is still greater opportunity for solution providers throughout an organization. This is why it’s important for a solution provider to build a relationship with CEO and the CFO of an organization along, with the CIO. Inevitably, if you can establish yourself as a trusted advisor to your customers all these separate business units will come to you.
This is something that Insight and CDW do extremely well. They understand and are able to cover organizations like an IT blanket. Also, look for vendors to push their channel partners to find hidden pockets of IT budget inside organizations.
Pat Calhoun, the CTO of Cisco Systems, has noticed this opportunity and believes channel partners are the best way to get at these non-IT people. “Partners for us are the best to sell Cisco to people within organizations we don’t have a relationship with,” he said.
One of his main targets is the manufacturing shop floor and a hospital emergency room.
Calhoun said sometimes it’s as simple as getting to know the guys who build the patient beds.
With this growing trend out there resellers now have another avenue to go down the next time they hear those dreaded words: “Sorry, the IT budgets are flat.”
One quick hit before I go. Ken Price, former executive with Compaq Canada and then HP Canada has resurfaced at Cisco Systems Canada in a marketing role. He also worked for Bell Business Solutions for a short while. CDN wishes Ken the very best at Cisco.
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(5 votes, average: 7.4 out of 10) Loading ...Taiwan or bust
By Paolo Del Nibletto
Well I made it to Taipei today. Or is it tomorrow? There is a 12 hour time difference (Eastern) so as you read this on Tuesday it will be Wednesday for me.
Last time I was here for the Computex Show it was quite eventful. The SARs outbreak practically clogged this city up, much as it did to Toronto. Many people here had masks on and at the airport all visitors and citizens were told to go through a full body scan. For those of you who remember the Arnold Schwarzenegger film Total Recall, a full body scan looks exactly like that.
However, it was also a time of great achievement for Taiwan, as they were putting the finishing touches on the largest office tower in the world – the Taipei 101 tower, which not surprisingly, has 101 floors. I will be visiting it today for the first time, and I’ll let you know what it’s like.
Taiwan also has a new leader. Ma Ying-Jeou took office last week and has vowed to improve political relations with its neighbour China.
A lot of the new computer manufacturing plants and flat panel fabs that were here in Taiwan are slowly moving over to China. The two main reasons are that land and building costs are lower in China than here, and the Taiwanese workers paid better than their Chinese counterparts. It will be interesting to see how the many computer vendors that make Taiwan their home will fare in the next few years.
I’m here for the Taiwan Excellence Event on behalf of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council. During this week I will have the honour of interviewing the heads of Acer, Asus, D-Link, HTC and BenQ as well as the chairman of the Industrial Technology Research Institute and the Hsinchu Science Park Administration.
The computing industry here in Taiwan wants to show the world that it can still innovate and, possibly more important, provide value.
I’ll be providing daily updates of my travels and meetings here so make sure you come back to VARbose each day to find out if this region still has what it takes to compete in the IT industry.
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(6 votes, average: 7.67 out of 10) Loading ...Cisco & Novell show leadership with new Canadian bosses
After writing editorials and blogs for what seemed to be an eternity on the subject of Canadian leadership for Canadian IT subsidiaries not one but two vendors have gotten the message.
Cisco Systems actually promoted a Canadian to run its subsidiary here, while Novell walked approximately two paces out of the Canadian president’s office and found Ross Chevalier ready and willing to take over. Imagine that two home grown executives running two significant Canadian IT vendor operations.
Nitin Kawale has been with Cisco for more than 12 years and started as a regional manager. He replaces Terry Walsh who is going back to
Australia to work at Cisco there.
And, with all due respect to Walsh who tripled the business under his watch here in
Canada, most foreign born executives simply do not understand the complexity and nuances of this market. Also Australia is a similar type of market to
Canada and has a lot of the same business nuances as well such as being close to a large market place. For Canada it is the U.S. and for Australia it is
China. This inevitably helped Walsh. Read the rest of this entry »
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(4 votes, average: 5.5 out of 10) Loading ...New Sage CEO swims with sharks
By Paolo Del Nibletto
My first take on Sue Swenson, the brand new CEO of Sage Software, is that it’s way too early to say anything about her.
However, I will say this. At her introductory keynote address at the Sage Insights 08 conference in Washington, DC, Swenson, a former T-Mobile USA chief executive, was smart enough not to make any proclamations and instead just made some general observations.
Telling the packed crowd that Sage has great products and should focus on the customer is nothing knew. Those are fine comments to make, but they’re also very safe comments to make. I think the Sage channel partners were expecting some kind of vision, and they did not get that at all.
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(6 votes, average: 8.17 out of 10) Loading ...Great night at CDN’s Top 100 Solution Provider event
*Go deeper into CDN’s Top 100 Solution Providers awards gala with full video and photo coverage, including interviews with some of the winners.
More than 200 solution providers turned out to see where they ranked on the annual CDN Top 100 Solution Provider list.
Softchoice was again the top solution provider of the year, but they were closely followed by Insight Canada, Compugen and Xwave. It was the closest race in years. Following up in the fifth spot was MetaFore IT Solutions. To view the entire list please click here: CDN Top 100 Solution Providers.
There were 12 newcomers to the list this year. The most CDN has ever witnessed. It is great to see smart and savvy new resellers challenging the established partners in the industry. It just makes everyone better, in my opinion. The award for newcomer of the year was handed out to The Herjavec Group, a security solution provider who acquired MetaComm last year. This company was established only a few short years ago and is led by Robert Herjavec, the former president of Brak Systems and current CBC TV personality on the show Dragon’s Den.
The fastest rising company was Epic Information Systems of Winnipeg, who moved up an amazing 27 spots from last year. This company is great in the community as they have their own Technology Day computer show. This show has been put on for five years and attracts more than 350 people from the area. David Reid, the president of Epic, said at the show last night that Winnipeg is the fly over show capital of Canada. All the computer trade shows fly over Winnipeg to get to Toronto or Montreal or from there to Calgary and Vancouver. He said for this market to have a show they would have to do it themselves. And, I have to congratulate Reid and the folks at Epic for the effort and initiative.
The event belonged to everyone in the channel. There were no runaway winners. All the people who attended I would consider winners, whether the made the list or they did not. Two people I would like to thank are Dave Neil of Neil Corporate Services who drove from North Bay, Ont., to make the event and Stuart Crawford of IT Matters of Calgary. Both narrowly missed making the list.
I also enjoyed meeting people such as Gary McNally of Digica Solutions, another newcomer to the CDN Top 100 Solution Provider list. I enjoyed listening to McNally telling me about his company and his future plans for success.
It was also great to catch up with Patrick Power, formerly of OAM and now with Nitro Microsystems after an acquisition. The Nitro/OAM deal is one of those classic cases of a win-win. Similar deals such as Compugen buying Orbex and Epic acquiring Prairie Computers are other examples of win-win deals in the channel. These win-win deals are rare, but they seem to happen more often in the Canadian IT channel. It says something about this community.
I also wanted to mention Bill MacDonald of Genuit and Herb Roblin of Hartco. I enjoyed listening to both of them talk about their days at Compaq and IBM respectively. We can all learn a few things from these veteran executives who are still making waves in the industry.
In closing I want to thank the sponsors for their time and attention to the CDN Top 100 event. They are HP Canada, Cisco Canada, Tech Data Canada, Symantec Canada, NEC Display Solutions and the newest sponsor AMD.
Two quick hits before I go. I has come to my attention that Paul Patterson has left Lexmark Canada. Patterson is a great friend of CDN and an excellent channel executive. I wish him the best.
Also Corel announced that Kris Hagerman, formerly Group President of Symantec’s Data Center Management Group, has been appointed as Corel’s interim Chief Executive Officer. Hagerman will replace the outgoing David Dobson, who accepted a senior executive position at a Fortune 500 company he has yet to name.
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